Vengeance is a Teen Girl (Hell Girl review)

Well hello anime vice its M here for another review. First
off sorry for the long wait, I kept getting distracted and not spending time on
my anime review work. Putting that aside
however I finally finished the series I’ve had my eyes on for quiet I while,
Hell girl. Although a bit on the older side, Hellgirl has been a long loved
franchise. Enough to have gained three
seasons, and popular enough to be recommended to me multiple times from
multiple people.

Hell Correspondence

The Series itself is kind of in two parts. The first is
series of short stories about the Hell correspondence. A site that will give
you contact with a young demon girl named Enma Ai, the hell girl. She in turn
gives the user a straw doll with a red string around its neck. Once you pull
the red string whoever you wish vengeance on will be ferried to hell usually
though a horrifying and dramatic way. However the down side is once you’ve
pulled the red string the day you die your soul will also be ferried to hell by
the hell girl.

The second part is the added adventures of bad dad and
washed up journalist Hajime Shibata whom after discovering his daughter has the
ability to “see what Hell girl sees” to both investigate and try to stop her.
Now he gets involved somehow with every case as the new protagonist. This
switches Enma Ai from the protagonist of the series to the “sympathetic” antagonist.

The short story episodic aspect of the show is ranges from
enjoyable to incredibly unimpressive, usually based around how convinced you,
the viewer, are that the blight of the hell correspondence user really requires
or deserves the user also going to hell to solve it. More often than not the
show brings to life exactly why this episodes villain certainly deserves to get
his or her shit rocked. I can definitely admit to have more the one smile as I
watched them get theirs. All that before always being reminded at the end how
bad a deal it really was, and how it was probably the wrong decision, even
while the I wanted somewhere in my heart nothing more than the user to pull the
red string and get his or her vengeance.

Hajime bad dad

The issues more come up when the Hajime elements are brought
in. This is no slight to Hajime as a character; he’s actually a really good
character incredibly likeable while flawed in just the right ways and I
personally completely agree with his view on everything to do with Hellgirl.
The issue is what he does and the new tone that comes from it. Constantly trying
to stop it, save the user without them having to resort to using hellgirl, and
always, always failing. He acts as a
constant reminder that this is all a bad idea sucking away the same drive and
twisted joy I felt come of hell girl. This is even more a problem when Hajime
comes up with or uses and alternate solution to the user’s problem and the user
still sacrifices their sole to get vengeance, just because the plot says so.
The mystery aspect of the Hajime parts would work if the viewer didn’t already
understand the dynamics of the hell correspondence from their perspectives. No
mystery is fun when you already know most of the answers.

Hajime's little girl is great

On the positive side, the music is not super great but is
perfectly used and applied to the scenes in such a way that makes it just
really shine. The art design while not shaft good is really well designed . I
like the very traditional Japanese elements constantly being placed throughout
the show and its dialogue and character are definitely a strong positive. Hajime
and his interactions with his daughter feel very real and emotional and
Hellgirls familiars while not making me laugh aloud they were funny enough to
be likeable.

To make my feelings clear, Hellgirl is to me, a collection
of individually really interesting elements executed well that when combined
form a bafflingly underwhelming package. While ever one part of Hellgirl is
good combined it just comes off as a flop and while not bad, not exactly fun to
watch or interesting to experience. Each of the Duel narratives are well
written and enjoyable in their own way, but when strung together they take away
what was good about the narratives. At the end of the day, even if I liked the individual
episodes of hell girl, if it wasn’t my wish to finish it for review I would
have dropped hellgirl several times. That says exactly why hell girl gets 3 flaming
cart faces out of 5

@sickVisionz: well it is just a succession of bad thing happening to everyone. you admit you like that kind of stuff and if your into it you probably like hell girl. Maybe I just went in with too high of expectations.

That usually happens to me, too. I thought Guilty Crown and Blue Exorcist were awesome, but their hype didn't last when they started to fall down due to some flaws.

Haven't read Hell Girl. When I first read the title, I thought it was a spin-off to Hell Boy. I'm so behind in your Deadman Wonderland reviews, and boy, there's still a lot of shows I haven't even heard of that you reviewed recently.

Oh, can you and @sickVisionz: help Aleasha with her Genre Master List? She brought a cool idea, and I'm helping her with some folks. Thank you.

@takashichea: Totally did, I got a weird background in stuff so I was able to help her out with that list a bit. Don't worry so much about the "Review Carnival" it can almost be all summed up with good (and I mean that) but underwhelming and not as good as it could/should have been.

@Sonata: I definitely think there are some interesting things going on in hellgirl,just felt like they couldn't decide on which direction togo with it so they went with both at the same time. I hear the other seasons take it completely different directions, is that true? I could see a lot of good coming from reformulating the elements of hellgirl.